HAIR is a substance which, from its various properties, and differences in stoutness, length, and strength, enters into a considerable variety of manufactures. Bristles are the stout elastic hairs obtained from the backs of certain breeds of pigs. The finest qualities, and the greatest quantities as well, are obtained from Russia, where a variety of pig is reared principally on account of its bristles. The best and most costly bristles are used by shoemakers, secondary qualities being employed for toilet and clothes-brushes, while inferior qualities are worked up into the commoner kinds of brushes used by painters and for many mechanical purposes. For artists’ use and for decorative painting, brushes or pencils of hair from the sable, camel, badger, polecat, <fcc., are prepared. The hair of various animals which is too short for spinning into yarn is utilized for the manufacture of felt. For this use the hair of rabbits, hares, beavers, and of several other rodents is largely employed, especially in France, in making the finer qualities of felt hats. Cow hair, obtained from tanneries, is used in the preparation of roofing felts, and felt for covering boilers or steam-pipes, and fur other similar purposes. It is also largely used by plasterers for binding the mortar of the walls and roofs of houses; and of late yearβ it has to some extent been woven up into coarse friezes, horse-cloths, railway rugs, and inferior blankets. The tail hair of oxen is also of value for stuffing cushions and other upholstery work, for which purpose, as well as for making the official wigs of law officers, barristers, <fcc,, the tail and body hair of the yak or Thibet ox is also sometimes imported into Europe. The tail and mane hair of horses is in great demand for various purposes. The ...

The eastern females wear their hair, which the prophet emphatically calls the “instrument of their pride,” very long, and divided into a great number of tresses. In Barbary, the ladies all affect to have their hair hang down to the ground, which, after they have collected into one lock, they bind and plait with ribands. Where nature has been less liberal in its ornaments, the defect is supplied by art, and foreign is procured to be interwoven with the natural hair. The Apostle’s remark on this subject corresponds entirely with the custom of the east, as well as with the original design of the Creator: “Does not even nature itself teach you, that, if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him? But if a woman have long hair, it is a glory to her; for her hair is given her for a covering,” 1 Cor. xi, 14. The men in the east, Chardin observes, are shaved; the women nourish their hair with great fondness, which they lengthen by tresses, and tufts of silk down to the heels. But among the Hebrews the men did not shave their heads; they wore their natural hair, though not long; and it is certain that they were, at a very remote period, initiated in the art of cherishing and beautifying the hair with fragrant ointments. The head of Aaron was anointed with a precious oil, compounded after the art of the apothecary; and in proof that they had already adopted the practice, the congregation were prohibited, under pain of being cut off, to make any other like it, after the composition of it, Exod. xxx, 32, 33. The royal Psalmist alludes to the same custom in the twenty-third Psalm: “Thou anointest my head with oil.” We may infer from the direction of Solomon, that the custom had at least become general in his time: “Let thy garments be always white, and let thy head ...

HAIR BELL. See Harebell.

HAIR-TAIL{Trichiurus lepturus), a marine fish, with a long band-like body terminating in a thread-like tail, and with strong prominent teeth in both jaws. Several species are known, of which one, common in the tropical Atlantic, not rarely reaches the British Islands.